The regular prostitutes come in at the opening of business in the
fall, and return to the North in the spring as business closes, as
regular as the merchant; many of them come out from New York and other
northern cities under the protection of young men, a certain class of
gamblers and black-legs who have long made this city their field of
operation during the winter months. The prostitutes of this migratory
class form the great mass of the inmates of the regular kept brothels,
of which there is an immense number in the city. These houses are
easily recognized, as the girls who occupy them are constantly to be
seen at the doors or windows, inviting men as they pass by to come in.
And in some of the principal streets in the city, just at evening,
it is not unusual to see the windows and doors of almost every house
as far as the eye can recognize them, filled with these girls. The
municipal regulations are such that these creatures are prohibited from
promenading the streets; hence they are obliged to resort to other
measures to make themselves known. In view of all these abominations,
doubtless the main cause of so much licentiousness, and the immense
number of prostitutes, of every class and grade, is the large number of
irresponsible men who frequent this place. Under such circumstances as
men meet here, they almost lose their identity as responsible beings,
and having no checks around them, and under no obligations to society,
consequently no pride of character, they become as bold and reckless in
licentiousness, as if the pall of night covered their deeds. And yet
men, and _some women_ too, will come in here, and mingle in the rounds
of dissipation and pollution, who before and while at home and in other
associations, would shudder at the sight, and even at the very thought
of deeds which they have been engaged in. Another cause that aids in
promoting these evils, is the small portion of men who have families
there. Probably not one in twenty is married, and if so, leaves a
family at the North, and while here, entirely forgets that he has left
at home a wife, who is little dreaming of the rounds of licentiousness
and dissipation, that is the almost daily track of her husband. To say
that there is a righteous Lot among them--these husbands of confiding
wives, would be hazarding too much more than I am willing to do, in
view of what I have witnessed in the conduct of men of whom better
things should be expected. And thus it is, from such men, together with
the thousands of transient and floating population in this city, that
makes it more than a Sodom, and causes the sins of licentiousness,
adultery and prostitution, to be regarded as the proper elements of
society, and perfectly consistent with a respectable and moral standing
in community and with the character of a gentleman. And more than
this is met with here, and withal, the most astonishing exhibition of
degration “in high life” that was ever witnessed.